There's an app for that

How did we ever survive before technology? I find myself wishing I could rewind conversations I'm having if I didn't hear or didn't understand what was said. I hate watching TV in hotel rooms - there's no DVR to pause or rewind when my husband is talking to me. I pay bills when I'm lying in bed and I experience a sense of panic if I'm out and forget my phone. It wasn't always this way. When my daughter was making her case to get a cell phone one of her reasons was "what if a stranger tries to abduct me?" After "run fast" wasn't a good enough answer for her, I replied that her dad and I made it through childhood just fine without one. She reminded me that we also taped songs from the radio on cassette players and that times have changed. She now has a cell phone.
The young people I know are convinced that the Mayan calendar cycle ending in 2012 doesn't mean the end of mankind but rather the end of technology, which may as well be Armageddon for this generation. They don't have the experiences of what life is like without technology or even what it's like to answer the phone without knowing who is calling. While they are so fortunate to have access to unlimited information, 500 television channels, and the ability to communicate with anyone, anytime, day or night, without mom or dad knowing - remember getting in trouble if your friend called after 9 p.m.? - it's also kind of sad. There's something to be said for being unplugged; reading a book with paper pages, having to cruise town to find out where your friends are, or going out with friends - in person - and having actual face-to-face conversations. If schools were to ask students to solve problems without using any technology, I don't think many would be up to the task because any problem we can think of today 'there's an app for that' to solve it, so honestly, why would they be? But what happens to the kids (like mine) who don't have smart phones yet?
I found one of those cassette tapes from days gone by. For laughs, we played it but I couldn't think of the name of the song being played. With a tap on my phone, we learned the name and artist in 15 seconds because there's an app for that. I sense smart phones in my children's futures. But I think I'll wait until after December 2012, just in case.